>>PREVIEW
SONS OF BUTCHER
Friday, November 10
Liberty Lounge
The cycle of modern music is pretty standard fare – record an album, tour the album, repeat until something weird happens.
Hamilton, Ontario’s Sons of Butcher threw the weird in first.
See, Sons of Butcher aren’t just a lycra-sporting bunch ’80s hard-rockers. They’re also a cartoon. Not cartoon-ish – an actual cartoon that follows three meat-headed butchers who chop beef by day and are rock stars by night.
Still with us?
Initiated as a means of toying with a few of creator Trevor Ziebath’s teenage songs, Sons of Butcher quickly became an adult-oriented cartoon feasting on extremity and kitsch. Picked up by specialty channel TeleToon and sporting a successful debut season, the wheels started turning as the trio realized that the concept lent quite easily to promoting a real-life band.
The skin-and-bone Sons of Butcher quickly honed their, uh, chops, donned some ridiculous gear, recorded an eponymous debut and hit the stage.
And now, throngs of fans across the nation are aching to catch the wild antics and relative stupidity of Ricky Butcher, Sol Butcher and Doug Borski. Utilizing their forthcoming cross-Canada tour as aa means of supporting the show, first-season DVD and sophomore effort Meatlantis, The Sons of Butcher have packed themselves into the van and are heading out to good ol’ Cowtown.
It’s quite the ordeal relates Ricky Butcher. They’ve formulated a live show that will be comparable to the program.
"We’ve barely played locally," laughs Ricky. "I imagine there will be a decent turnout because we wear spandex and we have props and lights – it’s a big-time show. We’ve got a big logo sign that has silk flames blowing, our mike stands are made of cow bones with cow skulls with glowing eyes and breathing smoke. We have pigs that dance to the music, hanging meat. How can that spell a bad time? At the very least, people will get free pepperoni sticks out of the deal."
What else would a triumvirate of rockin’ butchers have to offer their adoring fans other than plenty of cold deli meat. It goes well with the sonic and esthetic cheese they deal out in massive quantities.
"That’s the point though," he chuckles. "Sons of Butcher are supposed to be cheeseball. We can write whatever we want and it’s not like pouring our hearts out and getting cut up for it. Write what the character would write and it’s always a joke."
Kicking around the Southern Ontario rock scene for years, Sons Of Butcher have paid their dues with little or no reward until striking pay dirt with their TV show. One wonders whether or not that makes the success of their television program-cum-rock-band bittersweet. Ricky is decidedly matter-of-fact about it all.
"You know what? I was in so many bands that failed over the years, I’m glad it happened this way. My heart was never in those bands, but I’m dedicated to Sons of Butcher (because) it’s fun. It wasn’t expected, we get to make a cool cartoon and be in a touring band. I can’t think of any other cartoon where guys are in a band and they play live. Besides, I see the band outlasting the show because television is so fickle. The bottom could drop at any time for television, but we’ll keep playing as a band ’cause not everyone’s heard of it. Some people still only know about one side or the other. And now with our second album finished, we’ll have a bunch of CDs pressed. We might as well get ’em out there." |
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